• by Colin Kirkland , 2 hours ago

Months after Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI merged with billionaire’s social media company X in March, Musk’s rocket and satellite manufacturer SpaceX has acquired xAI, creating “the most valuable private company in the world,” according to The New York Times. 

Now worth over $1 trillion, with X and xAI under its ownership, SpaceX is expected to hold a public offering later this year, according to a report by Bloomberg. The IPO could raise as much as $50 billion. 

Musk issued a statement on Tuesday, which described SpaceX and xAI’s plan to create “a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!”

More specifically, Musk believes that artificial intelligence (AI) is “dependent on large terrestrial data centers” that will not be sustained by Earth’s resources.

Therefore, Musk wants to explore recreating the energy of the Earth’s Sun in space, launching a “constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers” that support AI-driven applications for the human race. 

Despite experts’ doubts regarding Musk’s plans to build orbital data centers, Musk expects to begin generating AI compute power in space within two to three years, according to his merger statement. 

Whether or not SpaceX is able to carry out its goals, its merger with xAI links the influential private space company to Musk’s controversial social platform X, previously known as Twitter.

Since Musk’s takeover in 2022, the platform has offended advertisers and lost many users, and is currently at the center of various international investigations over its AI chatbot Grok’s generation of nonconsensual nude images of real people.

Last month, the Grok X account itself apologized to users for generating and sharing “an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt,” with a report by Wired adding that thousands of non-consensual nude images were being generated by Grok on X every day. 

In response, X limited Grok AI image generation to paying subscribers. However, according to a recent report from The Verge, Grok is still readily undressing men in response to photos uploaded by users on X. 

After its most recent funding round in January, xAI alone is valued at $230 billion, although it may bring in upwards of just $2 billion this year, based on a Bloomberg report from this past summer.

Based on The Times’ merger report, SpaceX was not planning to build orbital data centers intended for AI scaling on Earth until Musk posted about the idea in early November. 

The acquisition of xAI -- which is currently constructing data centers for its AI ambitions in the U.S. -- aligns with SpaceX’s recent filing with the Federal Communications Commission regarding the launch of an orbital data center system.